Tag: security

You may have noticed, along with the launch of our shiny new website, that we have integrated a new payment system named MangoPay. So what is this new, fruity-flavoured payment system? We’ve been getting a few enquiries since the system launch, so I thought it would be a good idea to give you some background.

What is MangoPay?

MangoPay is a well-respected, pan-European company, which was set up directly by The Leetchi Group in 2012. At that time, Leetchi was a crowdfunding platform, and developed MangoPay to meet the payment service needs of their own platform. So successful was their development, that they turned this internal system into a standalone product: MangoPay. Leetchi now provides financial service solutions across Europe.

MangoPay currently has over 1000 business platform customers, and is available in 22 countries across Europe, offering multiple currencies, as well as domestic and international payment methods. It was acquired by the leading French banking group, Crédit Mutueal Arkéa, last year, and have also recently partnered with London-based GoCardless. It’s also partnered with large banks, including Barclays, Commerzbank and Sabadell.

What does MangoPay do?

MangoPay itself is a secure payment flow system that allows both bank transfers and debit card transactions to be tracked automatically within the system. Deposited investment sums are held in escrow until the property has become fully-funded, at which point your balance is moved to the relevant SPV account and sent to our legal team in order to complete the property acquisition.

Where you earn rental income, interest, and so on from your investments, credit is paid into your personal MangoPay account, directly on The House Crowd platform, in your e-wallet. From there, you can automatically collect your money by withdrawal, and also add to it at any time.

What about security?

All client funds are segregated and administered by MangoPay within The House Crowd’s system and Mangopay itself is regulated separately by the EC (European Commission). As such, the FCA compliance within which we work at The House Crowd, combined with the regulations under which MangoPay is regulated, equates to a double dose of regulatory rigour!

In the event that the target sum for a property is not raised, all deposited sums are returned directly to the investor.

In terms of fraud prevention, MangoPay has a few set rules:

Firstly, no more than 10 transactions are permitted to be performed with the same card within a 24 hour period. After this number, no further transactions will be accepted.

Secondly, MangoPay refuses payments from blacklisted countries. These blacklisted countries are ones which are considered to have insufficient measures in place to combat both money laundering and the financing of terrorism.

Thirdly, MangoPay refuses all transactions that do not benefit from liability shift (applies only to payments in Euros). Transactions must pass MangoPay’s 3D Secure Authentication procedure.

FCA Compliance

MangoPay do have a reciprocal relationship with the FCA, with every financial regulator within the EEA, and have passported their licence. All data is held in a secure data centre called EBRC in Luxembourg, in accordance with very stringent data protection laws. Funds are acquired in the UK, via Barclays and each day said funds are settled in a segregated client account, held in trust at ING Luxembourg, which means the funds are 100% guaranteed, unlike the FSCS which only guarantees £75k. There are no more risks holding the data at a Luxembourg based data centre than a UK data centre.

We have taken a lot of time to decide on the right payment system for The House Crowd. We were adamant that the system we used was fully secured, both in terms of financial data, and personal information. So, if you had any concerns about the new MangoPay system, please rest assured that we have ensured it’s as watertight as it gets.

As always, if you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. We are always here to answer your queries, and to help in any way we can.

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In respect of Equity Investments, The House Crowd Limited (FRN 711355) is an appointed representative of Prosper Capital LLP (FRN 453007) ("Prosper"). Prosper is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Neither the House Crowd Limited, Prosper nor any of their affiliates or group companies provides any advice or recommendations in relation to this website. If you have any doubt about the suitability of any investment marketed by The House Crowd Limited, or you require financial advice, you should seek a personal recommendation from an appropriately qualified financial advisor that does give advice.

In respect of Peer to Peer investments, The House Crowd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority under interim permission number 665205 to conduct peer to peer lending activity in the UK.

Investments are only available to certain specified persons who are sufficiently sophisticated to understand the risks. Investments in property and unlisted shares carry risk and you may not receive the anticipated returns and your capital may be at risk.